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Xiaoqing Yu

Xiaoqing Yu

Xiaoqing Yu,Associate Professor of Violin

B.A., Beijing Central Conservatory of MusicM.M. Manhattan School of MusicM.M. University of South CarolinaEmail: xyu@leeuniversity.edu

A native of China and a graduate of Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, Xiaoqing Yu studied violin with legendary professor Yaoji Lin. In fall of 1986, Yu came to the United States under the invitation of prominent violin professor Rafael Bronstein and received the Manhattan Scholarship to Manhattan School of Music in New York, N.Y. While in New York, he served as Co-Principal Second Violin of the National New Composition Orchestra and the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra. Yu performed in numerous concert halls, including Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center. He was also a member of the Brooklyn Philharmonic and Greenwich Symphony Orchestra. Before coming to the United States, he performed throughout China with various groups, including the National Symphony.

Yu is now in his ninth year as Associate Professor of Music, teaching violin, viola, chamber music, and serving as director of the Lee University Chamber Strings at the School of Music at Lee University. Yu is in his 20th season as Concertmaster of the Greenville Symphony and his 19th season with Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra, a ten-week annual summer opera festival in New York. While in the U.S., Yu has performed with world-renowned performers, such as Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Nadja Sonnenberg, Pavarotti, Emmanuel Ax, Andrew Watts, Joshua Bell, Midori Goto, Sarah Chang, Yo-Yo Ma, Maxim Vengerov, Misha Maisky, Ofra Harnoy and Glenn Dicterow, among others.

Prior to joining the Greenville Symphony, he served as principal second violinist of the American Chamber Orchestra, performing in nearly 100 European cities, including Barcelona, Madrid, Luxembourg, Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin, Paris, Lyon, Marseilles, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Florence and Sienna, among others. Over the years, he has been a very active chamber music player, performing with various chamber music groups in Europe, Canada, Mexico, and Central America. He has worked with and coached closely by members of the Cleveland and Emerson String Quartets. He was a featured performer on New York's famed classical radio station, WQXR, and on WFLN, Philadelphia's classical station. Both performances were broadcast live nationwide on primetime.

Performing, chamber music coaching, and master class tours have taken Yu to China and Asia every summer since 2002. He has given master classes in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Seoul and Dague (South Korea), and Chinese top conservatories in Beijing, Tianjin, Shenyang, Sichuan, Xian, Shenzhen, Nanjing and Hangzhou, as well as many university music conservatories. In the summer of 2012, Yu toured with cellist Maria Martinez of Chicago and pianist Sin-Hsing Cai of Chattanooga and performed Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with symphony orchestras in Qingdao, Lanzhou, and Harbin, China.

Yu has performed Mozart's Violin Concerti No. 1, 3, 4 and 5 as a soloist, as well as works by Bruch, Saint-Saëns, Wieniawski, Vieuxtemps, Vivaldi and Piazzola with various symphony orchestras. His recordings include Six Violin Sonatas by Rossini, Janácek's Suite for String Orchestra; Schubert's Death and the Maiden Quartet and Schoenberg's Transfigured Night on Swiss label Clave with the American Chamber Orchestra.

The primary focus of the Department of Musicianship Studies is providing curricular and co-curricular experiences for music majors pursuing emphases in Church Music, Music Business, and the Music in the Liberal Arts.

Faculty Spotlight

DR. WILLIAM R. GREEN

Dean of the School of Music
Professor of Music

William R. Green is the Dean of the School of Music at Lee University, where he oversees a broad program of undergraduate and graduate music degrees with dedicated study in performance, music education, church music, and music business. As a Professor of Music, he also conducts the Lee University Chorale and the Lee University Festival Choir and teaches graduate and undergraduate conducting. He earned the Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting from the University of Kentucky and the Master of Music from Georgia State University. Green performed and recorded with Robert Shaw as a member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and Chamber Chorus. The impact of this musical experience led Green to doctoral research on Shaw’s techniques on rhythm and phrasing, specifically in relation to the works of J.S. Bach.

In addition to his work with Shaw, Green has collaborated with many of the leading conductors of our time, including John Rutter, Yoel Levi, Z. Randall Stroope, Ann Howard Jones, and Jefferson Johnson. He has led performances of many of the major works for chorus and orchestra, including Handel’s Messiah, the Requiems of Mozart and Fauré, Brahms’ Ein Deutches Requiem, Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy and Mass in C Major, Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music, and the works of Bach, Britten, Poulenc, Vivaldi, and Schubert, among others. Ruth Cartridge of the Chattanooga Pulse said, “Green’s touch with the waves of sound in Brahms was simply lovely. There is an aura of suppressed energy in his pianissimos that would make many choral directors envious.”

He is active nationally and internationally as a guest conductor, adjudicator and clinician, most recently working with choirs from Georgia, Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and South Carolina. He has presented workshops throughout the United States, as well as in Central America and Israel.

Academics

The Academic Sector is made up of five colleges and schools: the College
of Arts & Sciences, the Helen DeVos College of Education, the
School of Music, the School of Religion, and the School of Nursing.